


guilty not remorseful

by alderations



Category: Dr. Carmilla (Musician), The Mechanisms (Band)
Genre: Abusive Parents, Character Study, Gen, Immortality, Protectiveness, a shallow dive into carmilla's motivations and mindset, canon-typical mentions of medical experimentation?, minor hints at catmilla and fleshrora, nastya/aurora but not enough to put in the tag
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26693044
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alderations/pseuds/alderations
Summary: On the far side of the stage, Nastya inspects her bow with unamused eyes and trembling hands while Jonny bounces on the balls of his feet and rambles about his monocle. They’ve really got to get rid of that monocle, after they get him an instrument. As Carmilla watches, Jonny throws an arm around Nastya’s shoulders, making her flinch and then, moments later, lean into his side. They’re like little feral kittens sometimes, she thinks, all hissing and spitting and threats, but so desperate to be loved.
Relationships: Dr Carmilla & Jonny d'Ville, Dr Carmilla & Nastya Rasputina
Comments: 13
Kudos: 70





	guilty not remorseful

Carmilla really needs to get Jonny an instrument, just to keep him busy. It takes her and Nastya twice as long to pack their own instruments away when Jonny keeps flitting between them, rehashing every minor detail of their set, as if they weren’t there to see it with their own eyes. Still, it’s good to see him so enthusiastic about something. That’s one point in favor of her having created a second Mechanism.

She shakes the thought off, because it’s too much for the moment.

Packing up the keyboard is more of an endeavor, so Jonny leaves her alone for a moment, giving her more time to watch him harass his sister. Nastya’s hands are shaking, like they always do after performing Cyberian Demons—it makes Carmilla’s chest ache, but she shoves that feeling away, because Nastya will learn. She’ll heal. Well, she probably won’t, but she has eternity to come to terms with her own past, and if Carmilla knows anything, it’s that singing about trauma helps. Someday, Nastya will see it, too.

On the far side of the stage, Nastya inspects her bow with unamused eyes and trembling hands while Jonny bounces on the balls of his feet and rambles about his monocle. They’ve really got to get rid of that monocle, after they get him an instrument. As Carmilla watches, Jonny throws an arm around Nastya’s shoulders, making her flinch and then, moments later, lean into his side. They’re like little feral kittens sometimes, she thinks, all hissing and spitting and threats, but so desperate to be loved.

A figure approaches behind the two of them, and Carmilla freezes.

“Nice show,” they say, in a voice that’s low and syrupy and inhuman. Their outline is too fuzzy to make out. “You three play here often?”

Nastya grabs Jonny’s elbow, pulling him close to herself. “W-we—we are j-j-just—”

The figure cuts her off with a soft laugh. “Oh, never mind. I know you’re not from… around here. That’s why I’m speaking to you right now, as a matter of fact.”

Carmilla squints, takes a few steps forward, and then stops when she gets close enough to see their face in the low stage lighting. They don’t  _ have  _ a face. They’re not just blank—undefinable shapes swim across their skin, too vague to be features but too present to pass off as shadows, and Carmilla’s mind is screaming that they are human, they have a face, everything is  _ fine,  _ but even deeper than her rationalizations is the dread in the pit of her stomach. That dread has been gone for a very long time, but it returns in waves like the wail of a siren, and she squares her shoulders and strides toward the figure just as they reach out one many-fingered hand toward Jonny’s chest.

_ “Get away from them,”  _ she growls, her voice echoing dark and magical across the stage. She doesn’t dare touch the stranger, but she gets close enough to make them back up, make them show weakness. Jonny and Nastya take cover behind her without having to be prompted. Good kids. “If you want to get your hands on my work, you go through me.”

There are no eyes on that face, but they look her up and down all the same. “A vampire, in  _ this  _ day and age? A bit old-fashioned, don’t you think?”

Carmilla doesn’t blink. “We don’t exactly go out of style.”

The standoff continues for a moment, tense and uncomfortably silent after their raucous show, before the figure shrugs and turns away. “Guess not. I’ll leave the good doctor to her work, then.”

Before Carmilla can respond, they fade out of existence in a prismatic shimmer.

“Fuck,” Jonny mutters, as Carmilla deflates, leaning half her weight on her cane. In an instant, Nastya is at her side, lips flattened into a thin line and arms braced to support Carmilla. “What the hell  _ was  _ that?”

Carmilla grimaces. “Eldritch… something. I don’t want to find out.”

“Okay.” That answer scares Jonny, clearly, but he tries so hard to be brave. “Okay. Um. I’ll—I’ll finish with the keyboard, and… Aurora’s ready for us, yeah?”

Nastya nods. “She will have the ramp down when we get there. Not before.”

With Nastya’s violin on her back and Jonny lugging the keyboard, they leave the venue in a tight cluster. None of them speak, not even Jonny, until they’re safe within Aurora’s walls, the gentle pulse of living systems humming around them all the way to the bridge. As soon as they set the instruments down, Carmilla collapses into the pilot’s chair and swivels it around to see Jonny and Nastya both watching her with unguarded fear in their eyes.

She wants to hold them. She wants to grab them by the shoulders and pull them into her arms, to feel Nastya nuzzling into her neck and Jonny’s face pressed to her collarbone while their breathing slows along with her own. Instead, when she raises her hand to run through her hair, they flinch in unison. Something in the depths of Carmilla’s chest breaks. “Aurora, do we have enough fuel to leave the system?” she asks, eyes fixed on the far wall.

**Yes. We shouldn’t need to stop again for several weeks.**

Carmilla watches the tension drain from Nastya’s face at the sound of the spaceship’s voice. “Good. We need to get away from here.”

Neither Jonny nor Nastya leave the room, though she never told them to stay. They’re just  _ standing  _ there, watching her like an animal about to pounce, while she stares up at the ceiling and tries to compartmentalize her way through a fucking eldritch being coming after her kids. She doesn’t have the time to be afraid, not until they’re out of the system. She certainly doesn’t have the time to feel guilty for putting them in danger. But Jonny actually  _ cowers  _ when she finally stands up again, and she does have the time for that.

“What’s wrong, Jonny? Use your words. You’re better than that.”

He scowls and forces himself to stand up straight. Nastya’s still clinging to his elbow. “What, you’re not going to launch right into  _ repairs  _ to make us immune to… whatever that was?”

There’s so much fire behind his eyes, and if she didn’t know better, Carmilla would call it hatred. She’s had a long time to get to know Jonny, though. The spitting rage of a scared kitten is there, wrapped in bravado and self-loathing that goes deeper than his actual personality, and inside it all, he  _ cares.  _ Carmilla can’t fathom what it must be like to genuinely  _ care  _ about the people they meet and the worlds they destroy, when every one ends in inevitable tragedy. That’s not to say that she can’t empathize—why else would she have Mechanisms, after all?—but for a moment she lets the pain in Jonny’s gaze flood her, and it nearly steals the breath from her chest.

Then she hardens. Immortality is expensive, after all, and it takes its greatest toll on their humanity. Carmilla’s is long gone, but she sees it shining all over Jonny, and if he doesn’t learn to stamp it out soon, it’ll break him entirely.

“I’ll keep you updated on what I decide,” she answers, cold and stony. “And I would prefer that you mind your tone, in the future.”

He wilts, some combination of fear and guilt that twists the stupidly compassionate knife in her heart. “Okay. Sorry.”

“Will you fix dinner for yourself and Nastya? We need to make some repairs.”

Jonny just nods, biting his lip, and scurries off toward the kitchen, apparently glad to get away without any physical damage. As soon as he’s gone, Carmilla closes her eyes and takes a few deep breaths until the nagging voice in her head quits telling her that she’s fucking up.

When she opens her eyes again, a tangle of wires has descended from the ceiling to wrap around one of Nastya’s hands. “Please don’t fuck the ship in front of me,” Carmilla pleads.

Nastya, bolder than Jonny,  _ does  _ roll her eyes in front of Carmilla’s face. “I think I can hold hands with my girlfriend without being too obscene about it.”

“Your girlfriend doesn’t  _ have  _ hands, my dear. Not here, at least.” Carmilla notes with satisfaction that Nastya follows her and looks on with curious intent as she starts to pry the outer panelling away from the controls. Emboldened by Aurora’s touch, she figures. “Shit. I don’t have the right kind of wrench for—oh, thank you.”

The aforementioned wrench appears from the depths of Nastya’s coat almost instantly. “You’re welcome.”

They work in silence for a while, touching up the controls and replacing rusted bolts and wiring as needed. As always, Carmilla is a bit miffed that Nastya knows her own ship better than she does. At the same time, it goes to show—they’re not ready, they don’t  _ understand.  _ Nothing is eternal. Nastya and Aurora love each other, in a way that resonates deeper and stronger than any love Carmilla has ever seen, which terrifies her, because it won’t last as long as they are all bound to live.

She can survive her own heartbreak a million times over, but to watch her daughter shatter when she comes to understand the horrific loneliness that will always define them? How the  _ fuck  _ is Carmilla supposed to make it through that?

The answer is obvious, as always. She relies on herself, and she teaches her Mechanisms the same.

“I saw your hands shaking earlier,” she comments, though Nastya’s clearly feeling a bit steadier now. “Are you still cold?”

Nastya frowns. “No. It’s just… nothing.” Lying is apparently a skill that takes more than a few centuries to manifest for some people, but she’ll get there.

“If your hands are still giving you trouble, we should work on that. I’ve updated the formula on your blood since I last gave it a workover, so it shouldn’t take that much time to refresh it.”

As she predicted, Nastya has gone completely still. “I said it’s nothing.”

Carmilla puts down the screwdriver in her hand. “You’re not convincing me, Anastasia.” Nastya’s eye twitches. “After dinner. I’ll give you some time to digest, and then we’ll give it a try.”

“Please,” slips from Nastya’s lips.

That puts Carmilla at a crossroads, shoulder-to-shoulder with Nastya and breathing in the cool detachment of Aurora around them, while she debates with herself over what’s really the best for Nastya. She  _ does  _ need her blood reworked, after all; Carmilla has recognized the signs of mercury poisoning several times, though she always goes to Jonny instead of her. It’s torture, and Carmilla knows that, but it needs to be done.

She squares her shoulders and stares ahead into the control panel as she replies. “That wasn’t a request.”

**Author's Note:**

> hello I was going to write more of this but a) I brainstormed it in my sleep which means I forgot half of it; I always have my best ideas when I'm like 80% asleep but I don't REMEMBER THEM and b) trying to put myself in the mindset of a toxic parent is uh. not good for me.
> 
> I really love Carmilla and I find her deeply relatable in a lot of ways, and I really want to see more exploration of her!! I think part of what makes her so interesting (especially to write) is that her immortality—which outlives and ECLIPSES the mechs' lives—means that she is such a radically different person in different parts of her story that it's hard to comprehend. She'll watch the galaxy burn!! She's seen and done so much!! And the Carmilla that made Jonny and Nastya... well, she was lonely enough to make a lot of fucking mistakes, to say the least. I figure that loneliness would drive her to some very calculated misdeeds in the name of protecting her kids, and loving them in the ways she knew. I wish I could write more about it without uhhhhhhh triggering myself lol.
> 
> anyway... if you enjoyed this, leave a comment? If my characterization is Whack and Terrible, leave a.. gentle and nice comment? i love u all thanks for reading. find me on tumblr [@alderations](alderations.tumblr.com) I am always happy to take prompts!! also: title is from Never Love An Anchor by The Crane Wives!


End file.
